


747

by rohkeutta



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Lots of pretentious stuff about space, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 05:59:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9165220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rohkeutta/pseuds/rohkeutta
Summary: All this light, Bucky thinks, leaning his chin to his forearms, curled into himself like a forest animal against the chill. His socked feet feel exposed and vulnerable against the step. All this light, and still it’s ancient history.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a quick thing I started over Christmas after having too much wine and reading fanfiction that made me sad, and finished today because I read sad fanfiction again and needed to vomit the feelings somewhere. I was convinced by my #1 fan [Fox](http://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackfox/pseuds/littleblackfox) that this isn't Pretentious Shit In A Box, so I'm posting it for shit & giggles etc. Kisses to lovely [DoubleOhWh00](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleOhWh00) for checking my commas!
> 
> The title comes from [a song with the same name](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtKsVq9XlfA) by kent.

The backyard is cold and quiet, when Bucky slips through the kitchen doorway and closes the door silently behind him.

The safehouse is in the middle of nowhere; when Bucky sits down on the back porch stairs and tilts his face up, the sky is clear and vast above him. It’s the color of overripe blueberries, the Milky Way slashing across it like a wound.

Betelgeuse looks a lot dimmer and redder than it used to look back in the war. Maybe it has already died; Bucky wouldn’t know.

 _All this light_ , Bucky thinks, leaning his chin to his forearms, curled into himself like a forest animal against the chill. His socked feet feel exposed and vulnerable against the step. _All this light, and still it’s ancient history._

Maybe the stars are already going out, blinking out of existence one by one. They just don’t know it yet.

It’s an oddly comforting thought, a pending apocalypse still on its way to them.

 _A catastrophe in the making,_ Bucky thinks and tugs the sleeves of his sweater down to cover his still-trembling hands. _A disaster nobody will witness until much, much later._

**

The Soldier caused a plane crash once; sneaked in, tampered with the plane, sneaked out again. If he closes his eyes and concentrates hard enough, he can remember watching it from a hilltop close to the airport, lying on his stomach in the short grass under a bush.

When the plane went down, the sound carried almost half a minute behind. If the Soldier hadn’t been watching, but instead relying on his ears only, the plane would’ve crashed at 14:04, not 14:03.

Half a minute for a sniper is almost as long as the way the light travels between the planetary systems.

Half a century for a trapped man is a blink of an eye for a weapon.

**

“I don’t think I was ever happy, back then,” Bucky murmured one night, in the early days, wedged between the cabinet and the toilet in the bathroom, his head between his knees. There was a sour taste in his mouth, and his voice was barely a croak. It was the first thing he’d said in nearly eighty-four hours. “Not really.”

Steve tensed a little in front of him; the place where his knee touched Bucky’s forearm was like a small, scorching sun in the vast, freezing expanse of Bucky’s body. “But you were,” he said, sounding confused and stubborn at the same time, ready to fistfight the cosmos.

“No,” Bucky replied and pressed his cheek firmer against the worn fabric of his sweatpants. “I think what you saw was just an afterimage of something that came before me. It’s like space. The ugly light caught up with me in the war.”

Steve was quiet for a long time, then slowly reached out and carefully put his broad, heavy hand on Bucky’s calf, his long fingers curling around it. “What about now?” he asked, voice pitched low. “How long until you’re all caught up?”

He was warm, and there, and Bucky gave in and shuffled just half an inch forward. Steve took the hint and eased Bucky’s legs out of the cramped crouch, stretched them out until they were bracketing Steve’s hips. Then he reached out again, put his palms on Bucky’s back and pulled him onto his lap, gently and effortlessly like he was picking up a child.

It was only when he was enveloped in the comforting, sleep-warm smell of Steve that Bucky let himself go boneless, gripped Steve’s t-shirt with both hands, and started shivering.

“I don’t know,” he said against Steve’s shoulder. “I don’t know. I’m still waiting.”

Steve turned his head, pressed his face into Bucky’s lanky, matted hair, and said, “I’ll wait with you.”

**

Steve stirs when Bucky slides back under the covers, shivering under his layers. “Hey,” he says groggily, automatically reaching out to pull Bucky close. “Nightmares? Jesus, you’re icy.”

Bucky presses up against him and pushes his cold toes between Steve’s legs. Steve makes a soft protesting sound, but squeezes Bucky a little before settling again; like he’s accepted that nightmares come and go, but Bucky will always return back to him, the brightest spot in the universe.

Bucky tucks his hands into his own armpits and his head under Steve’s chin, closing his eyes. _A disaster can take its time,_ he thinks. _I’ve done mine._

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is [here](http://rohkeutta.tumblr.com), come watch the trainwreck that is me trying to blog.
> 
> Betelgeuse is expected to explode as a supernova within the next million years, in case you were wondering, so Bucky will have a lot of time to brood over it.


End file.
